Wine / Alcohol / Sake

酒 is the Chinese character, Korean Hanja, and Japanese Kanji that means alcohol.

This can refer to wine (esp. rice wine), liquor, spirits, sake, or to alcoholic beverages in general.

In the west, we tend to say "sake" to mean Japanese rice wine, however, this character is a little ambiguous in Japanese. It literally just means alcohol, and is often pronounced "shu" in Japanese. Specifically, in Japanese, you might want to ask for "seishu" or 清酒 to get the sake that you are used to in the west. Seishu literally means "clear alcohol."

In Wine there is Truth

This is a nice Asian proverb if you know a vintner or wine seller - or wine lover - although the actual meaning might not be exactly what you think or hope.

The literal meaning is that someone drinking wine is more likely to let the truth slip out. It can also be translated as, "People speak their true feelings after drinking alcohol."

It's long-believed in many parts of Asia that one can not consciously hold up a facade of lies when getting drunk, and therefore the truth will come out with a few drinks.

I've had the experience where a Korean man would not trust me until I got drunk with him (I was trying to gain access to the black market in North Korea which is tough to do as an untrusted outsider) - so I think this idea is still well-practiced in many Asian countries.

VS

Please note that there are two common ways to write the second character of this phrase. The way it's written will be left up to the mood of the calligrapher, unless you let us know that you have a certain preference.

Asura, malevolent spirits in Indian mythology {Buddh} Asura; demigod; anti-god; titan; demigods that fight the Devas (gods) in Hindu mythology; (female given name) Ashura asura, 修羅 originally meaning a spirit, spirits, or even the gods, it generally indicates titanic demons, enemies of the gods, with whom, especially Indra, they wage constant war. They are defined as 'not devas', and 'ugly', and 'without wine'. Other forms are 阿須羅 (or 阿蘇羅, or 阿素羅); 阿修倫 (or羅須倫 or 阿修輪 or 羅須輪); 阿素洛; 阿差. Four classes are named according to their manner of rebirth-egg, born, womb-born, transformation-born, and spawn- or water-born. Their abode is in the ocean, north of Sumeru, but certain of the weaker dwell in a western mountain cave. They have realms, rulers, and palaces, as have the devas. The 阿修羅道 is one of the six gatis, or ways of reincarnation. The 修羅場 or 修羅巷 is the battlefield of the asuras against Indra. The 阿修羅琴 are their harps.

to guard against; to exhort; to admonish or warn; to give up or stop doing something; Buddhist monastic discipline; ring (for a finger) (1) (かい only) {Buddh} admonition; commandment; (2) sila (precept) śīla, 尸羅. Precept, command, prohibition, discipline, rule; morality. It is applied to the five, eight, ten, 250, and other commandments. The five are: (1) not to kill; (2 ) not to steal; (3) not to commit adultery; (4) not to speak falsely; (5) not to drink wine. These are the commands for lay disciples; those who observe them will be reborn in the human realm. The Sarvāstivādins did not sanction the observance of a limited selection from them as did the 成實宗 Satyasiddhi school. Each of the five precepts has five guardian spirits, in all twenty-five, 五戒二十五神. The eight for lay disciples are the above five together with Nos. 7, 8, and 9 of the following; the ten commands for the ordained, monks and nuns, are the above five with the following: (6) not to use adornments of flowers, nor perfumes; (7) not to perform as an actor, juggler, acrobat, or go to watch and hear them; (8) not to sit on elevated, broad, and large divans (or beds); (9) not to eat except in regulation hours; (10) not to possess money, gold or silver, or precious things. The 具足戒full commands for a monk number 250, those for a nun are 348, commonly called 500. Śīla is also the first of the 五分法身, i.e. a condition above all moral error. The Sutra of Brahma's Net has the following after the first five: (6) not to speak of the sins of those in orders; (7) not to vaunt self and depreciate others; (8) not to be avaricious; (9) not to be angry; (10) not to slander the triratna.

In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line.In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese.

Successful Chinese Character and Japanese Kanji calligraphy searches within the last few hours...

When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.

Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!

When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.

The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"single-character wall scroll.We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.

Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.

There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.

Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.

The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also
attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over
6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers
in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt
such a feat.

Some people may refer to this entry as Wine Kanji, Wine Characters, Wine in Mandarin Chinese, Wine Characters, Wine in Chinese Writing, Wine in Japanese Writing, Wine in Asian Writing, Wine Ideograms, Chinese Wine symbols, Wine Hieroglyphics, Wine Glyphs, Wine in Chinese Letters, Wine Hanzi, Wine in Japanese Kanji, Wine Pictograms, Wine in the Chinese Written-Language, or Wine in the Japanese Written-Language.

35 people have searched for Wine in Chinese or Japanese in the past year.Wine was last searched for by someone else on Sep 17th, 2018